ORBzine - Movie Reviews
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Series 7: The Contenders
This is not part of the Hollywood trash-factory. It is an Independent film, with the resultant low budget which makes it all the more effective. The film has no stars, just talent - and a great script. A reliance on big-name stars and fancy SPFX would have ruined it. It is a parody on the current craze for reality television. The show depicted in the film is similar to the show in Schwarzenegger's Running Man . Six randomly selected people, the Contenders, must hunt and kill each other. The last one standing is the champion, who will appear in the next series. The returning champ is a pregnant woman [Brooke Smith - the girl down the pit in Silence of the Lambs]! Like the Arnie movie the game is Government-orchestrated, and like the Arnie movie this film is increasingly cynical about its subject.
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Mummy Returns, The
The Rock's tiny cameo starts off this dreary SPFX-fest. We are then reunited with the stars Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weitz and John Hannah. Although ten years have apparently passed there is no sign that they have aged - except for the happy couple's incredibly mature offspring, that is. Watch out for Donna Air 's cameo as Hannah's girlfriend. As the title suggests, the villain from the original film [Arnold Vosloo] is back. To help him are the reincarnation of his lover [ Patricia Velasquez ], and a High Priest [Alun Armstrong - Patriot Games]. Their hired muscleman is Adabesi from Oz, whose role consists mainly of babysitting the O'Connells' kidnapped son. This was written and directed by Steven Sommers who tried to re-do and out-do the original film. However, he failed completely. There is none of the original's suspense, while the characterisation is off and the plot non-existent. The only really original bit is when the characters are attacked by an army of undead pygmies. Well, they're more convincing than the Ewoks! Eventually we get to a disappointing and unconvincing climax and resolution. The villains' fates seem so ... tacked on.
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Down to Earth
Chris Rock plays a toned down version of himself - an African-American stand-up comedian. He is involved in a Road Traffic Accident, and winds up at the gates of the next world [run by Eugene Levvy and Chazz Palminteri]. Because he was taken before his time, he gets to use the next available body. Unfortunately for him it is a rich middle-aged white man. Yes, this is merely a terrible remake of Warren Beatty's mediocre Heaven Can Wait. The supporting cast is mediocre too. Some guy called Mark Addy [big in the USA, perhaps] plays the butler, while Greg Germann simply plays his character from Ally McBeal This is a Black film, made for the African-American niche market instead of for world culture, and avoids getting laughs when it can make political comments instead. The new-look honky millionaire tries to run his hospitals like a humanitarian, and thus runs foul of the New York money-men. According to the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, New York money-men is an anti-semitic code-word, so this film is political in more than one way.
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Dracula 2001
Christopher Plummer plays a millionaire antiques dealer named Van Helsing, who's top-security vault is broken into by Omar Epps and his team of incredibly hi-tech [and incredibly stupid] thieves. They make off with a silver coffin that holds some incredible secret ... Plummer heads off to America after the villains, with sidekick Jonny Lee Miller [ Hackers ] in tow. The other thread to the plot is Van Helsing's daughter. She has a telepathic link to Dracula, who travels to New Orleans to corrupt her and add her to his harem. Beyond the compulsory Mardi Gras and LaFayette Cemetary scenes, there's no hint that it's New Orleans at all! Dracula [Gerald Butler] is apparently jaw-droppingly attractive to young Merkin women. However, his performance is so lacklustre that this reviewer sincerely hopes he does not succeed in replacing Pierce Brosnan as the next James Bond . He prances around in his swirly black trench-coat and his Kevin Keegan hair-do, but manages to look less impressive than even David Boreanz! Plummer is merely the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the story, while the usually-reliable Miller is disappointing beyond belief. Jennifer Esposito and Jeri Lynn Ryan play a couple of incredibly sexy blood-sucking parasites - that's BEFORE they become Brides of Dracula. Esposito gets most of the screen time, while Ryan has a three-scene cameo. In some ways this is similar to John Carpenter's Vampires , not least of which is the link to a big-name director - in this case Wes Craven . However, while Carpenter actually directed his, Craven [an inferior director, in this Reviewer's opinion] only produced this lame effort. Also, both films attempt to give a biblical explanation for the existence of vampires who are repelled by Christian iems like the Cross and Holy Water. This effort seems to have taken inspiration from the superior Stigmata as well.
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Evolution
This is the new SF comedy by
Ivan Reitman
[
Ghostbusters
]. David Duchovny and Orlando Jones play a couple of
science professors at a college in Arizona.
Seann William Aston plays a character similar to his one in
Dude, Where's My Car
, although what little comedy there is in this film has been
extremely toned-down to achieve a PG rating.
Aston's drop-out wannabe-fireman discovers a meteor,
and the two scientists investigate it ...
The most original aspect of the film, a life-form which is carried on a meteor and un-terraforms Earth, seems stolen from Chaga by Ian McDonald . The other thing carried over from McDonald's book is the paranoia against the US military-industrial complex. Here that is personified by Ted Levine [Silence of the Lambs], the stereotypical warmongering US Army general. Julianne Moore plays a clumsy CDC scientist, an attempt by the writers to add both slapstick and a love interest for Duchovny's character. Neither attempt is convincing. Dan Ackroyd, last seen as a US Naval Intelligence Officer in Pearl Harbour, here plays the Governor of Arizona. As with the monster movies that this attempts to parody, the alien menace displays the ability to overwhelm the entire world. Of course, the military option leads to complications remiscent of those in Andromeda Strain and The Blob . Our motley crew of heroes have to take on the monster and save the day - Godzilla anyone?
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